Raph Koster's Blog, page 28
October 17, 2011
GDCO2011: yet more talk coverage
Yup, a tiny bit more.
10 things that I'm going to be thinking hard about following GDC Online 2011, feature, GDC Online 2011, PocketGamer.biz.
The 25 Most memorable Quotes fro GDC Online 2011, Gamasutra
Side note, I am struck how little long-form coverage there is of talks anymore, now that so much blogging has moved to Twitter…
October 15, 2011
October 13, 2011
GDCO2011: It's All Games Now
I ended on this hope from Ted Nelson:
I hope, that in our archives and historical filings of the future, we do not allow the techie traditions of hierarchy and false regularity to be superimposed to the teeming, fantastic disorderlyness of human life.
You can read Gamasutra's write-up here. I think it captures the essence pretty well!
Here's the deck as a PDF. (2.8MB)
Here is the actual Powerpoint 2007 file (8.4MB). Um, the fonts are Garamond, Edwardian Script, Olde English, Poor Richard, and Adobe Gothic Std B. If you don't have them, it's likely to look a mess.
September 20, 2011
Speaking at GDCOnline 2011
I'll be doing two sessions at GDC Online this year. The first and smaller one, is a panel in the Game Career Seminar:
Breaking into the Game Biz – Ask the Pros!
Speaker/s: Randy Smith (Tiger Style), Gordon Walton (Playdom), Raph Koster (Playdom) and Tess Snider (Pixelsea Entertainment)Day / Time / Location: Wednesday 4:30- 5:30 Ballroom B
Track / Duration / Format: Game Career Seminar / 60-Minute / PanelDescription: This panel asks what it takes to break into the game companies, gathering advice from the people who actually decide whether you're coming on-board: the creatives & hiring managers. We've chosen luminaries from different studios and company types to answer all your questions!
Eligible Passes: All Access Pass, Game Career Seminar Pass
The second one is the meatier one, a session in the Customer Experience track, wherein I shall attempt to show just how much of social media practice comes out of games, and if not, where it came from; and then, extrapolate out to the problems social media should be running into any day now; and wonder whether games ever will retake the lead in connecting people online; and what that all means to you, the developer, if you now are running a single-player game inside an MMO-like construct called an achievements system inside a virtual worldish thing called a social network owned by someone else.
It's All Games Now! How Games and Social Media are Converging
Speaker/s: Raph Koster (Playdom)
Day / Time / Location: Thursday 1:30- 2:30 Room 6
Track / Duration / Format: Customer Experience / 60-Minute / LectureDescription:These days, social media is looking an awful lot like games — and we don't mean in the gamification sense! Rather, lessons drawn from online games have driven much of the development of the social media platforms we use today, from Twitter acting like real-time chat, to "avatars" that are public profiles on social networks. The cross-pollination between Internet communication systems and games has always been there, but now we're at the point where we are putting games inside of, well, what looks a lot like games! What does ths mean for our customer experience? In this talk we'll look at the parts of customer experience that are under your control as a developer — and the parts that are not. We'll talk about best practices that don't work in the new environment. We'll examine the trends that are pointing the way forward, and talk about the problems and pitfalls that games anticipated that Web 2.0 might need to fix in version 3. And finally, we'll see if we can peer into the crystal ball a little bit, and see if we can predict the future of connected gaming experiences.
Takeaway:
A bit of a history lesson: where have we come from, in terms of community experiences?
A large chunk of science: learn about the underlying structures behind community features: synchronous and asynchronous interactions, communications, profiles, etc
A dollop of business: a frank evaluation of how our connected experience platforms work (and don't work) today
A dash of futurism: where do we see connected experiences going? What is the future of community management, forums, blogs, and games-as-a-service?Eligible Passes:All Access Pass, Main Conference Pass
Should be fun! Guess I better start thinking about writing slides for it…
September 19, 2011
Tobias Buckell kickstarter for a new novel
Those of you who hung around Metaplace may recall that one of the guest speakers we brought in to the lecture series was science fiction writer Tobias Buckell, author of Halo: The Cole Protocol (there, your obligatory videogame connection).
I've always been more interested, though, in his original science fiction work. In particular, his Xenowealth novels Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose. They feature fast-paced action in a space opera sort of setting, sure, but with a unique flavor that comes from Toby's Caribbean background. (You can read my brief review of Crystal Rain here — Toby himself describes it as "steampunk Aztecs invading a Caribbean lost colony world").
Well, the publishing industry being what it is, the Xenowealth books are no longer forthcoming as traditional big publishing books. (You can read a bit about why here; Toby blogs a lot about the business of writing).
That doesn't mean that there's no hope for those of us who want to read more in the Xenowealth universe, though! Today Toby announced The Apocalypse Ocean by Tobias Buckell — Kickstarter. That link has a preview trailer — and at the end of the trailer, a video from Toby that explains the Kickstarter project. The plan includes eBook and hardcover editions, as well as extra perks for higher pledge levels, like being written into the book as a planet or a spaceship name.
This sort of thing seems like a highly logical alternative for a writer with a devoted following and enough tech chops to get out there independent of major publishers. Since we seem to be heading for a future where all artists in all media will likely have to be "on tour" to support themselves, you may as well get a jump start on it now and support this Kickstarter, because darn it, I want to know what Pepper does next. 
September 14, 2011
Gangs and Guilds in MMOs, again
A long while ago I posted about some research that showed that gangs and guilds seemed to have mathematical characteristics in common. A few days ago, I got this sent to me by someone at the department of CS and Engineering at the University of Minnesota:
Hi,
I saw a previous post on your blog about similarities between MMOs and street gangs. Me and my research group (VWO) recently published a paper which contradicts the previous results. We thought you may find it of interest.
Thanks, Muhammad
The blog post about the paper can be found here, with some conclusions, and you can also read the pre-print PDF of the paper. It looks like this is based on the the same set of Everquest II data that many researchers have been using for a while now — I am unsurprised to see Dmitri Williams credited.
August 28, 2011
The Sunday Song: August Timepieces
Recently some colleagues at Disney gave me a few gifts in thanks for giving a talk to some folks internally. Apparently Warren Spector picked out one of the gifts: a harmonic capo (he knows I play guitar, you see; been a few years, but we've jammed together). This little beastie sits on the 12th fret and presses down very lightly on the strings with rubber feet. Unlike a regular capo, though, it does not depress the strings all the way — instead, it sits lightly enough to cause an open pluck of that string to play a harmonic note — those bell-like tones you hear sometimes out of a guitar. But you can play under the capo, and still get standard notes. The result is that you play a regular chord, and any time you play an open string, you get a harmonic instead.
Well, I had to try it out. Beautiful on the Baby Taylor; didn't fit on my Blueridge (the heel on the neck is too thick)… and just barely fit on the 1962 Gibson, which is what you'll hear if you click the link. Because once I had it, I started to noodle about in open G, and, well… got this done in the last couple of hours:
Download audio file (AugustTimepieces.mp3)
– download "August Timepieces"
Hope you like it!
Tech notes: I cheated and sped up the recording a bit; I haven't learned the piece well enough to play it at speed yet — just wrote it after all! In fact, first time into the chorus I go off on some weird little excursion that shouldn't be in there. 
It could be played without the harmonic capo, of course. It just would sound quite different, I suspect (haven't tried yet).
The guitar is miked with three mics and is also running a direct line from a Dean Markley Pro Grand. Direct is panned to one side, and a cardioid condensor pointed at the 5th fret is panned to the other side. Another condensor aimed at the 12th fret is panned to the back with some reverb, and a large diaphragm studio mic is panned smack in the center. This was the second take, after playing it maybe six or seven times. The guitar is tuned in open G — DGDGBD.
August 25, 2011
Video of my Casual Connect talk
Some of you have already stumbled across this, so I figured I had better post about it! This is the video for the talk I gave at Casual Connect Seattle 2011. Slides were already posted on the blog here.
August 19, 2011
Videogame History Museum in danger
If you have been to E3 lately, you have seen the awesome stuff that the Videogame History Museum puts together for its shows. If not, check out this video:
But now Gamasutra is reporting that Time May Be Running Out For The Videogame History Museum, because they have been unable to raise the money via Kickstarter to continue what they are doing by opening an actual physical museum.
They've got 12 days to go, and are only halfway there. If you want to keep this charity going and help them towards their goal of having a permanent museum location, please visit their Kickstarter page and donate!
Indie Game Challenge #3
Got this in the mail, and thought some of you might be interested!
The third annual Indie Game Challenge is now open for entries! Don't miss your chance to showcase your skills and catapult your professional gaming career to the next level.
Presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), GameStop and The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, the competition offers almost $250,000 in prize monies and scholarships, including a $100,000 grand prize for the winning game. Finalists will also receive national exposure and be eligible for additional prize money by having their pitch videos posted on GameStop.com and GameStop TV for People's Choice Award voting.
Individuals or teams are asked to submit game betas and pitch videos by Oct. 3, 2011. Finalists will get the opportunity of a lifetime, will be flown to Las Vegas to attend the prestigious D.I.C.E. Summit, have a chance to showcase their games to top publishers in the video game industry set up by the IGC, and will be invited to attend the Indie Game Challenge Awards in February 2012.
If you have a game that you/your team would like to submit, or to simply support independent game developers, visit www.indiegamechallenge.com. For questions about the registration process or game submissions, please email indiehelp@smu.edu.
Good luck!
